On NCLB, Wiener and Petrilli Fight to a Draw

On NCLB, Wiener and Petrilli fight to a draw

As Americans are discovering during this summer’s World Cup, soccer often produces an outcome that is unsatisfying to our domestic sports sensibilities: a tie. One team controls possession while the other creates better scoring chances. Both leave the pitch claiming vindication, but neither gets to declare victory. That was my reaction in a nutshell to this week’s education policy match pitting reform veterans Ross Wiener and Mike Petrilli, both…

Ross Wiener: I Supported NCLB. I Was Wrong.

Ross Wiener worked for Education Trust, a DC-based advocacy group that claimed to support low-income children of color. Funded by the Gates Foundation, among others, Education Trust enthusiastically defended No Child Left Behind and standardized testing as ways to improve the lot of the neediest students. When NCLB was reauthorized in 2015, critics of standardized testing hoped that Congress would remove the testing mandate (every child in grade…